The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c17.s1.3

v1.c17.s1.3

Of the personal appearance of Indra a much more vivid picture is given than of any other of the gods: he has head, arms, hands, and a great belly which he fills full with the Soma, so that it comes to be likened to a lake. His lips are often mentioned: his beard is agitated when he moves, and, like his hair, it is tawny; his arms are long and strong, as becomes the wielder of the bolt, and he can assume any form at will. His favourite weapon is the thunderbolt,² of metal or of gold, with four or a hundred angles, with a hundred or a thousand points. His is *par excellence* the epithet *vajrin*, ‘bearer of the bolt’, which is else given but once each to Rudra, the Maruts, and Manyu. When he bears a bow, his arrows are hundred-pointed and winged with a thousand feathers. He has also a hook with which he gives wealth or fights, and the Atharvaveda³ gives him a net wherewith to overcome his foes. His chariot is drawn by horses, normally two, but sometimes a thousand or eleven hundred: their hair is like peacock’s feathers. His favourite food is the Soma, which he drinks on the very day of his birth, and of which he consumed three lakes when seeking to slay Vṛtra: on yet another occasion he drank thirty lakes. The epithet Soma-drinker is so essentially his that it is given only to Vāyu apart from him, and a few times to Bṛhaspati and Agni, when associated with him. His connexion with Vāyu in this regard is close: he is said to have Indra for his charioteer. Indra, however, also drinks milk mixed with honey, and is partial to buffaloes, eating as many as The birth of Indra is mysterious, like that of other heroes; he declines to be born save through his mother’s side:¹ this may be interpreted² as the lightning bursting through the cloud, or it may be merely treated as one of the many cases of miraculous births, which may be ascribed to nothing more than popular fancy, and of which the birth of Athene is on one view a famous case. His mother is called once a cow, and he is styled a calf: once³ she is called Niṣṭigrī, identified by Sāyaṇa with Aditi. Twice she is styled Çavasī, as he is the son of strength (*çavas*). The Atharvaveda⁴ makes her Ekāṣṭakā, daughter of Prajāpati, which is of course merely speculation. His father is Tvaṣṭr or Dyaus, and a legend⁵ clearly indicates that, in order to obtain the Soma, he seized his father by the foot and slew him: perhaps for this reason we find one clear record of the hostility of the gods to Indra. Only late speculation⁶ makes him the oldest, or the favourite, son of Prajāpati, while with Agni he springs from the mouth of the giant in the Puruṣasūkta. Agni and Pūṣan are made his brothers, and his sons once occur, but without indication who they are; he has, however, a son Kutsa, produced from his thigh and precisely like him, in the Jaiminīya.⁷ His wife is Indrāṇī, but the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa⁸ gives him two wives, Senā and Prāsahā, who are clearly legendary; the regular post-Vedic wife, Çacī, daughter of Puloman, is clearly derived from his epithet *çacīpati*, ‘lord of strength’, understood as husband of Çacī, a meaning which Pischel⁹ vainly reads into the Rigveda. She definitely appears in the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa in a curious legend in which Kutsa Aurava, born of Indra’s thigh and his double, lies with her and is marked by Indra to distinguish him. But another tale alluded to in the Atharvaveda¹⁰ tells how in love of an Asura woman, the Dānavī Vilisteṅgā,¹¹ he went to live among the Asuras, assuming a female form among women, a male among men. Here perhaps should be reckoned his invocation as Menā, ‘wife’ or ‘daughter’ of Vṛṣaṇaçva in the Subrahmaṇyā.¹² A vulgar tale¹³ records how, as Sumitra, he had intercourse with Dīrghajihvī, an Asura woman, who licked the Soma and had unlimited organs of sex.